Guest Written By Anil Lamba, Industry Director, Finance at Teads
When I talk to the media managers and directors of global finance brands about their industry, it’s clear that, while finance is essential to everyday consumers, it’s an industry that faces many trust issues.
This means that it’s more important for finance brands than any other sector to ensure their advertising is perceived as trustworthy and brand safe. In my experience, there are three main elements to consider.
Segmentation is good, hyper targeting isn’t
The end consumer’s consciousness of how they are being targeted has never been greater – it broke into the mainstream recently when digital advertising featured in a 20 min segment on the John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight. Add to this the dreaded GDPR month of May, when data was even mentioned on the sports satartist show Fighting Talk.
Users are aware they’re being targeted. Therefore, segmenting them makes complete sense and to an extent it’s something we have all become comfortable with.
Now it’s about making the collective messaging for the brand narrative. Recently, I worked with Lloyds on their campaign where their audience was segmented by needs and life stages. This meant that we were able to serve custom ads to a broader demographic. The result of this lead to increased customer recognition by 23% versus a benchmark of 8%.
Hyper targeting further may have felt too intrusive and affected the brand score, but when you hit the sweet spot, the results are transformative.
Display is dead, long live display
Basic display advertising has become wallpaper to the end user. It’s something that, unless garish to the eye of the beholder, goes largely unnoticed. However, that doesn’t mean it has lost its usefulness, we’ve just not yet adapted to the end user.
At Teads, over 70% of impressions on our global platform are seen on a mobile device. That’s why we’re part of the Coalition for Better Ads and why we work on AMP pages and with Apple News.
At the heart of what we discuss with brands about display, there are the same three golden rules as our philosophy for video:
- Be seen in quality journalistic environments
- Be seen where the user is most engaged
- Be adaptable to devices
An example of this, was when we worked with BP and Ogilvy last year. We developed a traditional print ad to create a stunning mobile ad, that was dynamic by movement on your mobile device.
You’re only as good as the company you keep
There is no shortage of advertising options. However, we live in such a cluttered digital world, that it is often difficult to make a choice that actually creates impact at the same time as ensuring your brand is in a ‘safe’ environment.
Recent research from DCN found that there are five factors that link trust in an advertiser to the environment they’re seen in. The aspects are Trustworthy, Credible, High Quality, Accurate and Safe sites.
It is no secret that banks, financial institutions, fintech businesses and others need to be accountable for every investment they make, and as a result have to know that their ads are being seen by real people. There is no tolerance for ad fraud in this sector.
The only way to ensure ads are in a safe environment and know they are being viewed by real people is by working with trusted partners. This is why when it comes to deciding how to run your ad campaign – no matter which format or technology you decide to go for – there must be a quality publisher within the mix. Even better, a network of quality publishers to achieve scale where you know your ad is going to be seen in the right context.
